wolc123

Heck of a nice day for Jesus’s and my birthday. It feels like 70 degrees out in the sun. Great day for some target practice with the old Red Ryder. I killed the heck out of this Ruby red can. Ralphie ain’t got nothing on me. Santa was good to us this year. Our kids got a lot. I got plenty: a signed T-shirt from my favorite NCAA basketball star, plenty of socks and underwear, some WW 2 and Civil War books, a nice binocular harness, and a fine deer rack. It is about as symmetric of an 8 pointer as I have ever seen. At least it will be after I fix up the busted brow tine later this winter.

Happy birthday Jesus.

Happy birthday Jesus

My father in law has one of those large black Jet sleds up at his place in the mountains. Ive never used it on a deer, but it does work great for ice fishing. When I get out on the ice, I sometimes take everything out of it and stand it up in the flat end, for a windbreak. It is so big and bulky, that it seems like it would be tough to get into most of the spots that I’d need to drag deer out of. I did kill this heavy Adirondack buck down in a gully up there back in 2014, and there’s no way I could have got that sled in there. Manually dragging that one, about 100 yards through the thick brushy creek bottom to where I could get to it with an ATV, was as hard as I’ve ever worked for a deer in NY state. If I ever kill another bigger one down there, I’d probably break it down where it dropped, and just haul out the meat. You might want to consider that for your gully spot.

I always pack light. 3 ft of nylon rope and a butt-out tool work ok dragging, especially if there is a little snow. I have very rarely needed to drag one further than about 50 yards, to where I could get at it with a tractor, field-car or ATV. When I’m hunting the mountains, in areas without atv or tractor access, I try and do it mostly at higher elevations, such that the drag will be downhill. The farthest that I ever dragged a deer (when I was in my early thirties) was about 5 miles thru the Rocky Mountains. I’m in my late 50’s now, but in as good or better shape than I was back then. Staying in decent physical condition does not take that much effort, and it makes a lot of sense for more than just keeping the ability to drag out a deer carcass. If it’s getting harder for you to drag out a deer, consider getting yourself a stationary bike and/or a rowing machine and get yourself back into shape. If you’re so “stove-up” now, that you don’t think you could drag a 150 pound deer carcass out of a particular spot, you probably should not be venturing there alone for any reason, anyhow.

I’m thinking it is around 1924. I looked it up once by S/N. It was a special model made for youth trap shooting. It’s in decent shape, with the only noticeable defect being the opening break lever has been repaired by braising. It’s a very good shooter. I can’t recall ever missing a squirrel with it, and I also took a few rabbits with it. I definitely missed some clay birds, but not as many as I broke. I don’t think it will take 3” shells. I did tote it on a spring Turkey hunt once because it handles great in a blind, being so short. I wouldn’t shoot further than 20 yards at one of those, with 2-1/2” lead #4’s. If I could find some of those new TSS #9’s in 2-1/2”, I might try that again. The area around my in-laws place, up in the northern zone, seems to be rather infested with turkeys this year.

My grandfather, on my mom’s side, got my old Winchester single shot .410 for her when she was young. I think it was made in the early 1920’s. She never took to it, nor did her two sisters. They didn’t have any brothers, so no one used it much until I came along to liven up my Mom’s Christmas 59 years ago. Ive been shooting squirrels with it for over 40 years (since I turned 14). My most memorable one was that first or second year. Our neighbor, across the street, had an English walnut tree, and folks would come from all over for those and other garden produce, which they sold out by the road. He had a little roadside produce stand, that fit on the 3-point hitch of his 1951 Ford 8n (I later bought that tractor from his widow after he passed). The walnut tree was in the front yard and he parked the tractor and stand under its branches. One day after school, I was over there after the raiding squirrels and I shot one up near the top of the tree. My shot was aimed in a safe direction (away from the road), but the squirrel bounced around a bit on its fall, and landed right on that little stand, between baskets of produce, while there was a customer there shopping. I remember the old woman telling the somewhat shell shocked customer: “he’s been after that one for a long time”. My grandfather had quite a stash of 2-1/2” Remington #6’s, but I gave most of what I had left to my father in law. I mostly used my .22’s for squirrel hunting in later years, so those .410’s lasted me a long time. They have a squirrel issue around their bird feeders and he could rarely hit them with his .22. I let him borrow my single shot .410 for a year, and he bought an over and under double of his own last year. I used to be in a Winter trap league, before we had kids. We would always have a .410 shoot on one week each season. I bought #8’s for that. It was a real challenge with the full-choked .410. You had to get in the birds fast and shoot them close, because of such a tiny and light pattern, compared to the 12 ga. I got pretty good at that and usually finished first on our team on those weeks, while I rarely did so well with the 12 gauge, compared to our other shooters. To this day, I don’t think I ever shot a 24 with a 12 gauge, but I did shoot 4-5 25’s with the big gun. I might have broke 20 birds once or twice as my best scores with the .410, while most of the other guys were lucky if they broke 10. My average score with the 12 was low 20’s, and about mid-teens with the .410.

Well it sounds like there is definitely no law against bringing anmo into NY, from across state lines, for personal use. That means gov Hochul will be getting a small financial gift from me, to help make up for the sales tax revenue that she lost by forcing me to purchase my ammo out of state. It just don’t seem right, enjoying all the benefits of this fine state (world class scenery, fishing, hunting, and summer weather conditions) without paying my fair share. We will have to take the suv on that trip. The tyranny is getting kind of week on our Toyota minivan and I don’t think it will be up to hauling all that extra lead up and down them hills.

I carry a speed loader with (2) 50 gr T7 pellets and a sabot in my right pants pocket, along with (3) 209 primers. I can reload in under 15 seconds. I also carry (4) extra T7 pellets, (2) sabots, and (4) more 209 primers in a small plastic box inside my Fanny pack. I can only remember using more than (1) shot on one ML hunt, and that was probably not necessary. A double lunged doe started to get back up, after her initial fall, and I put her down with a neck shot. If I’m using the ML during gun season, I sometimes bring along a short 12 ga pump-action slug gun for follow up shots, and have taken a few “doubles” with that after dropping the first one with the ML.

An xtp bullet, driven by 100 gr of T7, dont do too much meat damage in that area either: Nor does a relatively slow moving shotgun slug, wether it be a full diameter foster type or a sabot. The little screamin center fire rifle bullets are far better thru the lungs of a deer though, as far as the meat damage goes.

Not sure about that, never heard about one. You’d think someone would post it here if such a jaw exists. I’d imagine that the close by border state ammo dealers jack their prices up so that they can fleece the NY’ers. We’re taking a summer vacation to Southern PA next year and I’m going to stock up when we are down there. I’ll try and remember to send Mrs Hochul some cash for the taxes if we do. Ive got plenty of ammo, likely a lifetime supply for my “big guns”, but could go for some resupply for my .22 rim-fire and .410 shotgun. I’d like to get after the squirrels, that have been pestering me all deer season, and that will deplete my current supply.

Just for the heck of it, figure out what the NY state sales tax would be, on the ammo you buy in Maine. When you get home, place that amount in cash in an envelope, mail it to gov Hochul, along with a note saying that you felt bad about spending your money out of state and you wanted to make sure that at least the state got their cut, even though the NY state business owners and their employees did not. Maybe that will help her see the error in her ways.

I suppose they may have. That was the last time that I hunted that spot. My in-laws used to rent that cabin every year, but they bought their current place (right on the edge of the ADK park), the following year. I had hunted that old spot about 10 years and that was the only deer that I ever got there. The way the rental weekends worked out, about half of those hunts were opening weekend of early ML and the other half were opening weekend of gun. I never saw a buck while hunting there, but I did see a pair of 6-pointers run across, between the lake one cabin, on one weekend in late September. I also had another close encounter with a big doe, during gun season, on the other side of the lake. A connected river looped around the back over on that side and I would take the rowboat over, and hike up the ridge over there. No doe permits are given out up there, so I could only watch her. Some day, I hope to get back to that spot. It’s all pretty heavily posted, but my father in law is still good friends with owner of that cabin that we used to rent, so I could probably get permission to hunt it if I tried. They don’t hunt it at all. They only fish up there. After I retire, in about (7) years, I’d like to move up to that general area. There’s enough ag around up there, so that the deer taste just as good as the ones from back here in WNY do. The scenery is many times better up there though, and there’s a lot less people around.

This brings to mind an old alpha-doe that I killed about a dozen years ago, in a very remote area that was roughly 25 miles outside the NW corner of the Adirondack park. She was probably between 4 and 6 years old, and very likely had never encountered another hunter. I was able to get into position, up on an oak ridge that was very far from any public road, about an hour before sunrise. It was a short hike from a lakeside cabin that my in-laws used to rent for a couple long weekends each fall. The seasonal road to that lake was treacherous on that end, and the long, winding driveway to the cabin, even more so. The year prior, I had been fishing the lakeshore below that ridge, with an onshore wind direction. I heard deer snorts from up top, so I decided that I would check that spot out the following year, on opening morning of early ML season. The next year, I heard the sound of branches breaking, just as the sun was starting to rise. The big doe was leading a group of (6) antlerless deer in my direction. I was seated on a big flat rock, near some white oaks. I could see that she was clearly the largest of the group, and that none on the “followers” had antlers. When she got up next to me, about 20 yards away, I settled my crosshairs behind her shoulder and pulled the trigger. When the smoke cleared, I’ll never forget the look that she gave me. It was like “what the heck just happened”. It made me believe that she really had absolutely no clue what I was (I was in full camo with zero blaze orange required back then). All (6) deer stood there, frozen like statues, for what seemed an eternity. After what might have been 20 seconds or so, her knees began to wobble, and she fell over sideways and away from me. The ground there was very steep, almost a cliff, and she slid down. The other (5) deer began to wander around up top rather aimlessly, none following her down the cliff. Clearly they had no clue what to do or where to go, having just lost their leader. They dispersed, after another minute or two, and I reloaded and butt-slid down to the doe. She had landed on the winding driveway to the cabin, which I did not even realize was down there. She started to stand up and I put a second round into her neck to finish her. I left the gut pile right there in the drive and went back for my father in laws atv to drag her back to the boathouse for hanging.

Out here in northern wny, our rain ended about 9:00 am. There is no more on the way today. Ive been out since 1:00; and will hunt until the buzzer, 1/2 hour past sunset. Im getting a Jump on ML, running that for my last gun season hunt. I’m hoping to reenact this scene from early antlerless season, legally punching a tag this time. I had to hold off when DD-10 showed up then:

My brother in law raises grass fed beef cattle. He makes lots of jerky from grind. It’s by far the best, when he uses a 50:50 beef:venison mix. Straight beef is way too oily and straight venison is way too dry. I still had almost two deer left in the freezer, when I started hunting this year, and I have added (2) more since. I might have enough grind to last my wife, daughters and I for a year, but I’m mostly hunting for my brother in law now. That jerky he makes is so good that I’m going to keep hunting, in full brown-down mode every chance I can up to January 1, or I run out of tags. I still have (5) tags, but not much free daylight time, until the Holiday ML season. I took that whole week off of work, so I’ll have plenty of time then. I just booked a couple days at my buddy’s southern tier camp near the tail end of that week. He has lots of standing corn, and a doe infestation. If I have any tags left by then, it shouldn’t be too hard to get them punched down there.

Keeping your powder dry is key. Not doing that cost me a nice doe during the Holiday season last year. I hunted the opening morning, catching the tail end of our Christmas blizzard. I loaded my warm gun in the house that morning. Wind driven snow was still flying, and quite a bit got into the muzzle of my .50 cal, loaded with a 240 gr xtp bullet in a black plastic sleeve and (2) 50 gr T7 pellets. That snow must have melted and got down into the powder thru the rifling groves. I didn’t see any deer in the morning and returned to the house for lunch, leaving my ML in the unheated barn. That afternoon, I put on snowshoes and walked out to my farthest stand. The big doe came out into a turnip patch 50 yards away. My shot sounded pitiful, and I could almost see the bullet leaving the muzzle, it was so slow. It probably didn’t get half way to the doe. I learned my lesson the hard way there. Now, I put a finger condom on my ML and leave it there till I shoot. Ive never had a wet powder problem when I did that, in rain and snow.

I never add anything to it before freezing (especially pork) because fat don’t freeze and gives it an off flavor, after 3-4 months, even if vacuum sealed. I do add some egg, to help keep venison burgers bound up, on the grill. One time, my wife stuffed a few raw ones with crumbled bacon and blue cheese, left them on the fridge a day to bind up, then cooked them medium rare in the air fryer. They were phenomenal: I’ll have to try and get her to do that again someday. Plain old straight ground venison works best for most of what she makes. We just finished a meal of our kids favorite: tacos. My personal favorite is her stuffed cabbage. Spaghetti with meat sauce is very good too, as is stuffed peppers and chile.

It doesn’t seem to matter what socks I wear in my Mickey Mouse boots. My feet stay warm in them in below zero temps, even in light cotton socks. I usually go with a medium weight wool blend on colder days though.

I like and use both sites. This one seemed just a bit anti-Christian at one time, which rubbed me a little bit the wrong way. They seem to be have softened up on that now, which is good. The other site was and still is very open to “Jesus talk”. I’m not a real good hunter or fisherman myself, so I always do my best to give the credit for my hunting or fishing successes, to Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. If anyone has a problem with that, I don’t give a damn. I’ll never “block” anyone, because everyone on both sites, has some good stuff to offer. Sometimes it’s tough to see that clearly at first, like when the NYBH members tried to squash anything crossbow related. Now, we have the early antlerless gun season, in my home WMU. Never has it been easier to secure my families meat supply. Without NYBH, and their crossbow opposition, that never would have happened. So you see, in the end it’s all good.

You could legally use your antlerless tag on one like this: In by just 3/16” on the left side but plenty of room on the right. It’s tough to judge at long range though, so you need some good binoculars or high magnification on your scope.

Not a good fit for a scope because of the top eject. Tough to get the eye relief right. If you like the levers, get yourself one of those new Ruger/Marlin 336’s, that just came out this year.

Ive noticed the same thing in the evenings. The first 15-20 minutes after sunset are doable, but not the last 10 minutes or so. Maybe on the edge of a field with a good scope and snow. The whole extra 1/2 hour in the morning was good though.

I took this picture thru my scope at exactly 30 minutes before sunrise yesterday from a stand in a hedgerow by between two hayfields. The crosshairs on my Redfield/Leupold Revolution 2-7x scope set on 2x were very clear at that time. In evergreen woods or with open sites, or an old cheap scope, you are probably limited to about 15 minutes before sunrise. The first year of the change, I took a nice buck in the snow at 7 minutes past sunset, using the old 1.5x Weaver scope on my smoothbore Ithaca 16ga model 37. That scope ain’t the best in low light and probably would have only been good another 5 minutes or so, even with the snow. i really like the extra half hours and have taken 3-4 deer, that I wound not have been able to, prior to that change. None in the morning and none were more than 10 minutes into the evening “overtime” period.

As far as personal use of the sweetcorn, this year we ate it on the cob, fresh from the “garden”, from mid-July until early October. I like it cooked in the air fryer the best as it seems to retain more sweetness that way. The later varieties -silver queen, are my favorites. We don’t can any but freeze a lot. We also give it away fresh to neighbors on both sides, as well as my sister and brothers families and my parents, mostly for them to freeze. I had about (2) acres of sweetcorn this year, which is roughly 4x what I usually plant. The seed for that costs infinitely more than the free RR fieldcorn seed that I usually plant for the deer. That’s why I didn’t leave much of it for them. I’ll just harvest most of my meat this year at my parents place, where I can take full advantage of the neighbors cut corn.